Anime Club Escapades: 04/11/2014

No Game No Life appeals to people that are not me or my staff and I really shouldn’t think of this as a problem. But it is.

Normally I would not be as opposed to an anime as No Game No Life entering discussion like it does and did in this week’s meeting. However, when it comes to the point where a noticeable portion of the club desires to see the anime, I start wondering about detrimental things like “how can anyone like this anime”, “just what are they getting out of enjoying this piece of shit”, and other lovely pieces of information I’d rather not say out loud. I do it so as to not hurt people’s feelings directly, even if voicing an opposing opinion on No Game No Life is no reason to start arguing taste, but it’s hard to steer discussion away from that sort of thing. Nevertheless, the discussion still exists. We still do get some sort of intelligent remarks out every now and then, even if they’re quite simple to understand.

Sometimes a premise can sound squicky enough to warrant avoidance. Incest happens to be a big reason why some members choose not to watch shows. One member has an older brother of her own, and would never consider him as some sort of precious “onii-sama”. Therefore, shows like Mahouka that elevate this kind of dainty, incestuous relationship kind of turn her off from the show. Yet she enjoys the shit out of No Game No Life. I suppose you can only argue that she has double standards if you only give both anime a cursory approach to the incest subtexts. There isn’t much evidence (yet) of the siblings in No Game No Life to have an actual romantic relationship and seems more towards a cheeky and competitive relationship between the two, while Mahouka is constantly playing its own shipping for laughs. And it’s not like she thinks the show is “amazeballs” or anything, we both find enjoyment in watching the show; my enjoyment just happens to be for different, more malicious reasons.

This goes for the great many shows I’ll be compelled to show as the weeks to by in anime club. The only anime we’re sticking to are JoJo Part 3 and Ping Pong (JoJo DUWANG got old after the 2nd episode sadly). We COULD follow Mushishi too, but not everyone enjoys relaxing when watching anime and we’ve already watched the first episode of that. This basically leaves the rest of the season open for grabs, approximately three first episodes per week, and it’s hard to choose which ones would be good for the club. I don’t mean “good” in the sense that people will think it’s good, but “good” in the sense that people will enjoy watching it in a group. Isshuukan Friends seems like the kind of show where you sit alone on the couch eating a tub of Ben & Jerry’s Caramel ice cream salted with your own tears, so that would get on the nerves of people who find that kind of shit annoying, namely me and a couple other club members. Mecha shows surprisingly don’t have that big of an audience around here either, given how confusing Captain Earth is and how horrifying the CG in Knights of Sidonia is. We COULD try Daimidaler if I can kill my self-worth to a reasonable level. It might actually be the best choice, since no one is honestly going to say that Daimidaler is a good anime. In fact, we could throw in Dai Shogun too, depending on how terrible the second episode ends up being. Really, though, finding a balance for the anime club is an underappreciated art.

I’m of the opinion, however, that people really don’t care what we watch as long as we’re collectively good sports about it. And I believe we treat each other with enough respect so that we’re able to watch anything.

Addendum

I just realized that there’s an inordinate amount of ping pong table scattered all across campus. Grab your balls and smack dose paddles, kiddies, we’re hosting a SHOUNEN TOURNAMENT ARC.

We’re really not going that far, but we’re definitely entertaining the idea of just coming together an learning how to ping pong.

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3 comments

No Game No Life is an otaku smorgasbord, that stuff is irresistable to us. It’s also way ahead of the LN adaptation pack in terms of direction. My impression is that Mahouka’s incest will never get past the blushing stage, while NGNL’s incest is so set already that they never needed the romance stuff. Episode 2 should clarify their relationship.

I’m just impressed that stuff like NGNL is discussed at all in your club. The club I attend has strict restrictions on “ecchi”, “loli”, “moe”, and such. Newly airing anime are occasionally shown in “random showing” slots, but are otherwise rarely discussed. There are most certainly a couple of members who closely follow new anime, but stay silent about it, while the vocal majority excites itself over Attack on Titan and the upcoming Sailor Moon reboot.

It’s hard for me to appreciate the otaku-centric anime as I seemed to have avoided the craze when I grew up with the medium. For me to relate to the actual otakus in my anime club, I’d have to watch more series of that vein, and that’s hard (like their penises) when the incest schtick is turned up to eleven.

If we are to put it that way, my anime club would be considered very hardcore in terms of actually following the currently airing seasons as they come along. This obviously alienates the would-be members who were indeed expecting something more along the lines of an AoT fanclub, and it certainly does hurt membership (we float along with maybe ten people per meeting). Though, if it means successfully avoiding the casual anime circlejerk, I can’t really ask for any more than what I have.

But man, banning out “moe”, “ecchi” and such? What is this, the Sibyl System?